EVERY Scotland campaign over the past two decades or so has had at least one game that you look back on as the one that cost us dearly. When I played, it was the 2-2 draw with Belgium at Hampden when they were down to 10 men and Daniel van Buyten equalised in the final seconds. That killed our chances of making the World Cup in 2002. I just worry now that this loss in Georgia will be the one we reflect on as the one that does for us this time around.
It wasn’t a complete shock to me, as I hadn’t shared the general air of optimism before the game. I thought we might drop points. A lot of people were tipping us to win comfortably but I never thought that would be the case. Georgia are not Gibraltar. They’re not minnows, especially on their own patch. Even in the first game at Ibrox, we saw how hard they were to break down. I actually thought a draw over there wouldn’t be a terrible result but a defeat was almost unthinkable. But based on that performance, we didn’t deserve any better.
People will talk about the heat and humidity draining the players. I don’t go along with that. You can still play at a high tempo in those conditions if you do it smartly. So Scotland can’t blame anyone but themselves. It was really just a flat performance.
Even after we lost the goal, you thought, “well, at least we’ve got 45 minutes to fix it”, but they never picked things up in the second half. It was low key, they never upped the pace, couldn’t apply pressure and didn’t create chances. So many individuals had an off-night at the worst time. It was such a big game and we never got going at all. That is the biggest disappointment for me.
I thought the team Gordon Strachan picked was fine. You could have made an argument for Leigh Griffiths to start but Steven Fletcher had been in decent form earlier in the campaign – with his hat-trick against Gibraltar – and the manager has a habit of sticking with those who have done well in previous games.
We had been doing well and winning games so you can see why he didn’t want to shake it up too much. But the players let him down this time around.
It was typical Scotland. Just when things were starting to pick up and it looked like we were finally on the right track, a result like this arrives like a real punch in the gut. We have to look at the various permutations for the remaining three games but it’s not looking good to even finish third. As for automatic qualification, it really looks like we’ve blown it now.
We had put Ireland effectively out the equation with the draw over there and the win in Glasgow and now they are back in the mix. To be blunt, we’re going to do well to make third and get a play-off from here. I think we’re going to have to take something from all of our remaining games. If we assume that we will win the final game against Gibraltar in Faro, then I think we will have to either beat Poland next month or take a draw against Germany and then a draw with the Poles. Either way, it’s going to be a big ask.
This game tomorrow against Germany has now taken on extra significance. There could hardly be a harder match than taking on the world champions. The only slight chance for Scotland might be if they think they’ve done enough and don’t go at it full-pelt. But that seems unlikely in my book.
We can only really focus on ourselves but when you see how well England, Wales and Northern Ireland are getting on in their groups then it would hurt even more if the other Home Nations were to qualify and we were stuck at home watching Euro 2016 on the telly. But we would only have ourselves to blame if that happens. You’re always looking for a slip-up with Scotland and this time it looks like it’s this defeat to Georgia.
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